2024-01-02 16:30:09
He transfer market It just opened. There is a whole month ahead and with Vitor Roque, who will wear number 19, it is not enough to complete Xavi’s Barça. It is not enough, depending, of course, on finding enough ‘fair play’ to make room for the midfielder’s salary that the coach is asking for to alleviate the very serious absence due to injury of Gavi“the heart with legs” as he defined it in his day.
Although the non-payment of Libero, who had to pay 40 million euros to the club, makes this operation even more difficult. Xavi needs one more midfielder also taking into account the repeated physical problems of Pedriwhich leaves him without one of the greatest sources of talent he has in the squad.
At the moment, Vitor Roque has not been registered in the League, but the Barça coach is confident that he can travel to Las Palmas tomorrow to start 2024 on Thursday (9:30 p.m.), although the Brazilian striker will initially be on the bench. If LaLiga accepts his registration, even if it is on loan until June.
Vitor Roque has arrived, curiously, taking advantage of the salary release that Gavi’s absence entails, in addition to the compensation money that FIFA provides to the Barça club.
Five pieces in the center of the field
But the coach only has five pieces for that strategic area. The Untouchables Frenkie de Jong and Gündogan they have the help of Ferminwho has been losing weight and influence in the team after his spectacular emergence, Oriol Romeuof which there is no trace in the starting eleven, and Sergi Robertowho was decisive with his two goals against Almería to prevent the crisis from breaking out definitively in Montjuïc.
And the squad that was already short in the summer has shrunk dangerously for Xavi in the center of the field. Hence, the club continues to scan the market in search of a player who meets the coach’s wishes. Although what is essential is that the board obtains the appropriate ‘fair play’ to open the locker room door to that midfielder.
Searching for the ‘new Davids’
Initially, and as soon as Gavi was injured with the Spanish team, Barça closed that possibility. “Finding a replacement is impossible,” Deco announced in the final days of November to the Efe Agency. “The club is not going to go crazy. It is sad for it and for us, as a club, but we will not find a replacement,” the Barça sporting director stressed then.
But that plan, not looking for anyone in the center of the field, has been modified in recent weeks as Joan Laporta himself revealed. “If we manage to have ‘fair play’, the idea is to have a midfielder who, in some way, compensates for Gavi’s loss,” explained the Barça president, staging this change of direction in which, logically, Xavi also joined.
The one who needs that midfielder the most, to whom Laporta labeled the “new Davids.” He compared him to that Dutch midfielder who arrived in the winter of 2004 (it was January) to revitalize Rijkaard’s ailing Barça, taking it out of the shadows and activating the virtuous circle led by Ronaldinho. The problem remains the same as in summer. Find money to please the technician.
From Aleix García to Douglas Luiz
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Barça is looking for a midfielder. The first names that stand out in the market are Alex Garcia (Girona, 26 years old, termination clause of 20 million) or the Brazilian Douglas Luiz (Aston Villa, 25 years old, valued at at least 60 million euros), who was also, precisely, on loan at Montilivi’s club, then from Manchester City.
Nor will they be the last in that search that Deco is piloting to give Xavi the piece that fills, even if only numerically, such an irreplaceable loss as Gavi’s.
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